BUSINESS EUROPE REFORM BAROMETER

European Union members of Business Europe have made satisfactory progress over the past year on only a fifth of reforms required to boost growth and competitiveness. BusinessEurope, which represents federations in 33 countries, asked its EU members to rate efforts by their governments to implement country-specific reforms. They assessed implementation as excellent or satisfactory in only 22 percent of cases.

Even with cheaper oil, energy costs were 2 1/2 times higher than in the United States while starting a business costs three times as much and takes almost twice as long, the group said.

The digital economy is seen as a key area of expansion by the current European Commission but EU countries lagged competitors in terms of broadband connections and research spending. The EU is the only major economy in which investment in broadband has declined since 2008.

Patent applications were fewer than in Korea, Japan and the United States, where patents are a tenth of the EU price even though there is agreement across the bloc that costs should be reduced.

1. Group 1: Business federations in Britain, Estonia, Latvia and the Netherlands are broadly satisfied with their countries' reform efforts.
2. Group 2 : Greece, Ireland, Portugal and Spain draw fewer dissatisfied assessments than a year ago but also fewer satisfied ones.
3. Group 3: Finland and Sweden, both traditionally seen as economically strong and competitive, businesses consider that reform impetus had slowed.

Business Europe acknowledges that bond buying by the European Central Bank, low oil prices and a weak euro are favourable, but were not reasons for inaction.